Off to see Prof Peter Vale, my vein guy, this morning. This was my second visit to him to see if, following the long treatment on Xarelto (Rivaroxaban), I was now clear of clots and could stop taking the anti-coagulant. I hadn’t seen him since my previous visit on 18th May. Gee the time goes by – that’s nearly three months ago. I felt a bit guilty admitting I’d already taken myself off the Xarelto a couple of weeks ago after a bit of self diagnosis on my CT scans.  I don’t think he was too happy about that, or that I hadn’t followed up on his advice to have a chest X ray for any embolisms that might have travelled. It’s hard to explain that you can only cope with so many rounds of drugs and scans and x rays before something inside you says, “No, this has to stop. I can’t do this anymore.” Anyway the good news is the clots have all gone, the swelling in my leg has gone down remarkably but I’ll have to take anti-coagulants on long plane flights for the rest of my life. Anyway that’s out of the way and I can now concentrate on the muscular rehabilitation.

Peter Vale is a good guy. Pretty practical and he doesn’t mind explaining things to the patient. Gee I’ve supported half the private schools on the North Shore this year with all the money I’ve spent on doctors. One of those schools should name a library after me.